MIT 4.602, Modern Art and Mass Culture (HASS-DI CI)
Professor Caroline A. Jones (with Niko Vicario and Rebecca Uchill!)
History, Theory and Criticism Section, Department of Architecture
Spring 2012
Notes
Lecture 22
We have the pleasure of hearing from two active participants and scholars of the contemporary.
Niko Vicario and Rebecca Uchill. Both have worked as curators. so they "make" history as well
as writing it.
PRESENT STRATEGIES
Lecture 22: Present-day strategies vis-a-vis Art and Mass Culture
The institutional and critical support of which so many exhibitions should be evidence not only did not
translate into material or even adequate practical support, but in many ways functioned to limit such
support.... The work - both in the sense of labor and art products - we did for the specific sites and
situations defined by curators often either could not be transferred to the art market or could [do] so only at
the expense of seriously misrepresenting the project's principles ...
-
Andrea Fraser, "Sen;ices ... " 1996
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BODIES / ART / WORK - Niko Vicario
1990s - 2000s "Experience" as phenomenological and multi-sensory (Rirkrit Tiravanija, Olafur
Eliasson, Carsten Holler) VS. estranged bodies entangled in circuits of violence, economics,
and politics (Teresa Margolles, Santiago Sierra, Andrea Fraser, Damien Hirst)
1.
The artist becomes global: Teresa Margolles and Santiago Sierra
A) Margolles at the Mexico Pavilion, Venice Biennial, 2009
B) Santiago Sierra, the remuneration of workers (in various projects)
C) MargolIes and Sierra, both based in Mexico, enter a circuit in which works that
operate within local conditions take on a global dimension
II.
Andrea Fraser and "services"
A) institutional critique (Hans Haacke, Michael Asher)
B) feminist art and performance (Mierle Ukeles was one example we saw)
m.
Damien Hirst and his trajectory from the display of embalmed animals to the construction
of a diamond-encrusted skull to the embrace of the market itself as the medium of
choice for this U.K.-based artist.
EXTRA! INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES - Rebecca Uchill
Looking at claims to extra-disciplinary, counterinstitutional practices made by artists and -these claims notwithstanding - the ensuing emphases and reliance upon the art
circuit/discourse/institutions.
IV.
Services - Andrea Fraser (again): the conditions of art production, labor and "Project
Art"
See verso as outline continues
1Andrea Fraser. "Services: A working-group exhibition" in Beatrice von Bismarck, Diethelm Stoller, Ulf
Wuggenig (eds.), Games. Fights, Collaboration. Das Spiel von Grenze und Oberschreitung. Stuttgart: Cantz 1996.
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Notes for Lecture 22
V.
Continuation of Institutional Critique - engaging with mUSeUlTI conditions, limitations
A) Renee Green Import/Export Funk Office
B) Brian Holmes's "Extra-Disciplinary Investigations"
C) Cory Arcangel and Beige Collective
D) Rebecca Gombert and Women on Waves
VI.
2004-5 Exhibition The Interventionists at Mass MoCA
A) Nomads: KrzysztofWodiczko, Michael Rakowitz,
B) Reclaim The Streets: Bill Brown and Surveillance Camera Players
C) Ready to Wear: Y oMango
D) The Yes Men: Breakaway Business Suit and Management Leisure Suit
VII.
Criticality and the parameters of "public" interventions
A) Critical Art Ensemble: Steve Kurtz, collaborators Beatriz Da Costa and Robert Ferrell
B) Other contemporary artists relevant to this discussion: Tino Sehgal, Allison Smith
Images (selected) for Lecture 22
Bodies / Art/work
Teresa MargolIes, In the Air, 2003 (bubbles)
Margolles, What Else Could We Talk About?, 2009 (Venice Biennial, installation)
Santiago Sierra, 12 Workers paid to remain in cardboard boxes, 2001 (installation and performance)
Sierra, 250 cm line tattooed on 6 paid people, 1999 (photograph of a performance)
Sierra, 160 cm line tattooed on 4 people, 2000 (photograph of a performance)
Andrea Fraser, Untitled, 2003 (video performance)
Fraser. Little Frank and his Carp, 2002 (video)
Damien Hirst, Mother and Child Divided, 1993 (glass, cow, calf, formaldehyde)
Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991 (glass, shark, fonnaldehyde)
Hirst, A Thousand Years, 1990 (steel, glass, flies, maggots, cow's head. sugar, water)
Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007 (platinum, diamonds, teeth)
Extra! Institutional Practices
Andrea Fraser. Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk, 1989 (video/still of performance at Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Renee Green, ImportlExport Funk Office, 1992-93 (Installation with audio, video, and reading materials)
Cory Arcangel and Beige CoIIective, Mario Clouds, 2002 (Hacked Nintendo cartridge, video projection)
Joep Van LieshoutiAtelier Van LieshoLlt, A-Portable, 2001 (Gynecological clinic produced for Dr. Rebecca Gomperts
and Women on Wave. aboard the ship Aurora)
Michael Rakowitz, ParaSITE, 1997 (Polyethylene inflatable architecture)
Critical Art Ensemble with Beatriz da Costa. Free Range Grain. 2003-2004 (bio-artlperfonnative action using
laboratory methods to test for genetically modified food)
Tino Sehgal, Kiss. 2003 (viewer'S photograph of "constructed situation" perfonnance)
Allison Smith and collaborators, The Muster. 2005 (public art event)
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4.602 Modern Art and Mass Culture
Spring 2012
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